Three finalists for Cundill History Prize announced

Two author biographies and a book on climate change in the colonial era have made the final cut for a prestigious history prize run by McGill University.

The three Cundill History Prize finalists, announced Wednesday, will each receive US$10,000 and are now vying for the grand prize, which raises the reward to US$75,000.

Contenders include Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Caroline Fraser for Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, about the life of the Little House on the Prairie author.

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Harvard historian Maya Jasanoff is also in the running for The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World, about the forces that shaped the Polish-British writer of Heart of Darkness.

Rounding out the list is Ohio State University professor Sam White with A Cold Welcome: The Little Ice Age and Europe’s Encounter with North America, billed as an interdisplinary examination of the role climate change played in determining the fates of European settlers.

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